


no encouragement for ghosts

by Knightblazer



Category: Iron Man (Movies)
Genre: Drabble, Gen, PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-25
Updated: 2012-06-25
Packaged: 2017-11-08 12:09:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/443052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Knightblazer/pseuds/Knightblazer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>When Rhodey sees his friend kneeling in the sands and calling out to him, he instantly knows that something has changed.</i> (Drabble, takes place in the first movie)</p>
            </blockquote>





	no encouragement for ghosts

**Author's Note:**

> Random drabble, and probably the only time I'll write in this fandom ahahaha. Just a little introspection in Rhodey after he picks up Tony in Afghanistan. Title comes from [31_days](http://31-days.livejournal.com), with the prompt for 11th March 2012.

When Rhodey sees his friend kneeling in the sands and calling out to him, he instantly knows that something has changed. It’s not the dirt, or the grime, or even the dried blood that tells him that something has happened—it’s the look in Tony’s eyes, the way every muscle in his body shudders from relief and the receding adrenaline when Tony leans on him as they wait for the helicopter to take off.

The look in Tony’s eyes tells him more than Rhodey thinks that he needs to know. It’s a look that he has seen in the eyes of others before, from fellow soldiers who have fought in wars alongside him and know more than anybody else what it’s like to be thrown into battle. There’s never been anything pretty or honorable about fighting a war—all that’s ever there is nothing but death and destruction. 

Rhodey knows, without a doubt, that wherever Tony had been taken to, he had been taken there to fight a war of his own. A war that he had won, with freedom as his price.

(A war that he had won, with innocence as his sacrifice.)

Rhodey knows this because when he sees Tony Stark he sees the war constantly playing in Tony’s eyes. He sees the war that Tony has fought in and won.

He sees the war that Tony had fought in, and the war Tony will never forget as long as he lives.


End file.
